The Tale of Mona Serros

I was finally able to realize a long-held dream of mine to commission the mysterious and inimitable Soty from his doomsday bunker in an undisclosed location. Naturally, I bartered for a unicorn, and our discussions led to the tale you see before you. Enjoy!

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The Tale of Mona Serros

Mona Seros was on a spiritual journey, a quest for meaning. And she was already running into obstacles.

"Only people who are too rich and too shallow to worry about real things go on spiritual journeys and vision quests," said her sister Diane Seros, when Mona met her at The Beanery Fair Trade Organic Coffee & Kale Teahouse.

"Oh no, Di, it's a very serious and very spiritual search. Totally serious, totally spiritual." Mona slouched cross-legged in a chair opposite her sister, toying with her short dark hair with one hand and swirling her cup of I Can't Believe It's Not Luwak java with the other.

"Mona, honey, understand that I'm saying this both out of love and because you have a track record of people supporting foolish decisions you make because they want you to like them."

Di, who wore her own similar locks in a right bun, cast a critical eye over her sister's ensemble. A tight, fashionable tank, short jean shorts from a store so exclusive it had a cover charge, and a pair of sandals Mona idly slapped against one foot even though detaching the artisan wood from the knurled leather strap could mean $100 in fees at The Sustainable Cobbler.

"I'm not sure why they'd want you to like them so badly," Di deadpanned, smoothing down her shapeless cardigan. "But it leads to an unreasonable level of support for flights of fancy when you really need to come crashing down to earth once in a while."

"Oh no, Di, this time I'm sure that the spiritual need is real," said Mona. She leaned forward, bright blue eyes shining sincerely as she grasped her sister's hands with perfectly manicured nails coated with clear protectant made by the Hopi in their ancient and sustainably expensive fashion. "Chad says it's true--you remember Chad, he's the waiter at La Petit Calorie who always gets me the best table. And Chet--you know, the clerk at Suburban Outfittery who gives me that nice discount? Oh, and Tyler too, Tyler at the Vitamin Hut. Also Bradley."

"What's Bradley do?" Di asked flatly.

"He's a musician. I'm on his list! I never have to pay to get into one of their shows, even when they play Speakeasy Romero which usually charges twenty bucks!"

"And they all agree that you need to find a new spirituality by going on a vision quest?"

"Uh-huh!" Mona cried, smiling. "Completely independently, completely impartially. They even offered to help, every last one!"

Di sighed. "Well, they all seem to be on the level, don't they? But what about you, Mona? Why do you feel spiritually unfulfilled?"

"I've just been feeling like my life is missing something," Mona said, sipping her coffee which Travis the barista had given her free of charge with a heart frosted in its non-dairy vegan creamy whip. "Like I need to challenge myself, invest my life with meaning, stop just thinking about the now and expand my mind."

"How about getting a job?" Di asked. "We could use a clerk at the firm."

"Oh, that's silly, Di," Mona laughed. "You can't get a purpose in life from work."

Her sister said nothing, and Mona brightly ignored her glare.

"There's got to be something beyond just going to parties and cruising around and shopping, though," said Mona with complete sincerity. "I just know it, and I'm going to find it even if it takes everything on Mommy and Daddy's charge card."

Di pursed her lips. "So where have you been looking?"

"The spirituality sections of independently owned and operated bookstores, of course!" Mona said with a smile. "Where else? I'm going back to the indie quarter this afternoon to round up a new batch to read at home."

"Mom and Dad still paying your rent?"

"Of course they are, silly! But I can't just sit around 2000 square feet without thinking that there's something more to life, you know?"

Di was beginning to remember why she hadn't talked to her sister that much in the five years since graduation, she with a JD and Mona with a double-major in art history and philosophy with a minor in undecided. "Well," she said, "let me know how it goes."

"Oh, it'll be easy to tell if I find some new meaning," Mona said. "You probably won't even recognize me."

"I'm sure," said Di, rolling her eyes. She left a tip and left, dialing their father to say that her efforts to look into the sudden spike in activity on Mona's charge card had produced definite results.

"Oh, there's no need for a tip," said Travis the barista as he walked by, letting his eyes play easily over Mona's curves with special attention to her crossed gams and the "twins" playfully peeking out from her Sustainable Fashions top. "You just take that right back, it's been my pleasure to serve you." Travis swept Di's cash off the table and slipped it in Mona's back pocket with a wink.

"Thanks!" Mona cried, hopping up.

"Let me know if you need any help with that spiritual journey," Travis continued. "I've got plenty of insights."

"Sure will!" Mona bounced out to her Land Drover Roustabout in the parking lot and kicked the hybrid engine--a special factory option available only at 150% of the asking price--into gear, setting course for the indie quarter.

Three bookstores later, though, facing yet another shelf full of books claiming to be meaningful, she was feeling a little less bouncy as she looked over the same old titles in different forms. The I Ching? She found more Eastern wisdom in P.F. Chang's. The Bible? Nothing that popular could have anything special about it.

Walking out with only a free copy of the latest bestseller from Brayden the cashier, Mona clopped along the sidewalk, her head down and her search for meaning as yet unfulfilled. She must have wandered further afield than usual, since when she looked up it was at the awning for an indie bookstore that she'd never seen before.

"Ovid's," she read. "Books to change your life." It seemed a little on the nose, but that was just how things worked for Mona Serros. She opened the door, jangling an antique bell.

A clerk was reading behind the counter, her hair a bright shade of blue to match the nose stud in the same shade, and her blouse would have been even more revealing than Mona's if not for the mitigating effects of many tattoos.

"Oh, hi," Mona said. "I've never been in here before, are you guys a new store?"

"We've been around basically forever," said the clerk, without looking up from the dusty tome she was reading (Cuniculus Informa Mulieris, which Mona guessed must have been in Spanish. "People don't usually bump into us unless they're looking for something special though."

"Oh, well I'm definitely looking for something special," said Mona excitedly. "I'm having a spiritual crisis, you see, and I need to have a vision quest or something to find meaning in my life. I need to make a change"

"Yeah, that's how pretty much everybody who walks in here feels," said the clerk. "Check the shelves around the corner in the 'Life Changes' section."

Mona scooted over there, only to be confronted with a wall of unfamiliar books. They all seemed to be titles related to what she was looking for, but they also seemed to be unfamiliar translations or new editions of things she'd seen elsewhere."

"Hmm…let's see…" said Mona. She tapped the books on the shelf one at a time, drawing them out when they looked interesting. "The Bhagvad Gila…grow a thicker skin and shed a few more bloody tears…Bovid's Metamorphoses…learn the easy way what Io and Callisto learned the hard way…"

They went on and on, books promising all sorts of changes and answers: Sow Tzu's The Art of Boar ("Learn how to bristle at insults and charge at foes")…The Burro Thodol ("Carry your burdens well in this life and be reincarnated up a notch"). But one this volume in particular glinted from the corner of one shelf, and Mona slipped it down.

"The Enchiridicorn, A Manual for Change by Arania of Lesbos, compiled from the teachings of Epictaurus of Cornunum," she read. The cover was richly decorated with images of prancing white steeds with gleaming alicorns that Mona found compelling, and the blurb on the back was equally so: "Learn the secrets of changing what you can change, accepting what you can't, and living in peace and harmony and wisdom with the universe. Resolve your quest for meaning with enlightenment and illumination."

In the end, Mona chose The Enchiridicorn to buy, along with three other books that didn't appeal to her quite as strongly: The Draconomicon, which promised fiery speaking skills and a new paradigm for the acquisition of wealth; The Dogma Sutra, which claimed to be about liberating the feral sexual energy bound within us all by lunar cycles; and The Llamapada, which had a tagline that read, simply, "Learn to give a spit." When Mona brought them up to the counter, though, the clerk waved away her money which had once been Di's tip.

"Oh no, that's not how we work at Ovid's," the clerk said. "The first batch is free. We'll ask for something in return if you come back."

This would have struck most people as unusually generous, but Mona was used to such treatment. "Thanks!" she said. "I'll let you know if I resolve my quest for meaning with enlightenment and illumination."

"I'm on the edge of my seat," said the clerk drily, licking her fingers and turning a page--the first time anything other than her lips had moved during the whole visit.

Mona eventually found her way back to her Land Drover--which seemed like it took longer than it should have--and made it back to her spacious ground-floor apartment. It was early yet, and still light out, so after a snack of a single slice of cucumber smeared with cottage cheese, she took out her new acquisitions to read them. Piling The Draconomicon, The Dogma Sutra, and The Llamapada on the ground for later, Mona pulled up her πkea designer desk chair to begin reading. Everything in the apartment was a πkea original, since πkea was as trendy and functional as it was Swedish and neutral.

Opening The Enchiridicorn, Mona saw that there was a translator's note, a biographies of  Arania of Lesbos and Epictaurus of Cornunum, and a warning. She ignored all three, since they frankly looked boring, and enlightenment and spiritual purpose wasn't supposed to be boring. Instead, she began reading.

"There are things which are within your power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are form, opinion, aim, desire, aversion, horns, and whatever affairs are your own. Beyond your power are, property, reputation, office, and whatever are not properly your own affairs. Only by changing yourself, which is within your power, can you affect that which is beyond your power."

"Huh," Mona said. "I guess that makes sense." It was a little tough for her to get through the language, but then again the text really seemed to speak to her.

"Aiming at great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward your current imperfect form; you must entirely quit your form, and acquire one of greater purity. But if you would have this, and possess purity and knowledge, you will certainly bear the horn by which happiness and freedom are procured."

"The horn?" Mona said. She squirmed a little in her seat and felt sweat prickle her skin, probably from sitting still on a chair as uncomfortable as it was expensive and Swedish. "It must be a metaphor or something. They'll explain it soon I bet."

"Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every unpleasing form, 'You are but a form and may be changed at any time.' And then examine it by those rules which you have; and first and chiefly by this: be prepared to say that your current form is nothing to you. Be prepared at any time to alter your form when it ceases to serve its purpose and to bear the horn of prosperity and purity upon your brows."

"You are but a form and can be altered at any time," Mona said, obligingly. She seemed to sweat more profusely and began to tremble with a definite electric energy, probably as the result of thinking deeply.

"Remember that desire demands the attainment of that of that form which you do not yet know you desirous; and aversion demands the avoidance of that form to which do not yet know you are averse. If you shun only that undesirable form which you can control, you will incur the blessings of such a change."

"Of course," Mona said. "It makes so much sense. I need to change myself before I can change the world. Her tank top felt like it was riding uncomfortably up on her and her shorts pinched at her posterior. πkea had clearly not tested the chair before  releasing it to market.

"If you cannot hear the subtle music of the spheres it is because you do not have the ears to hear it; change them to lengthen your understanding."

Her ears prickled as if at this mention, and Mona giggled even as her back began to ache a bit.

"If you cannot feel the divine wonder of the world it is because you do not have the skin to feel it; change it, and throw a coat of divine softness over yourself."

A feeling not unlike numbness began to tickle at Mona beneath her clothes, though strangely it wasn't at her extremities like numbness usually was, like when she'd fallen asleep at an Ingest the Noise concert.

"If you cannot feel the path beneath you leading to somewhere great it is because you do not have the feet to walk it; change them, and trod the path forward on light and tireless hooves."

Mona squirmed to a better position, clenching her toes to support herself; her feet did seem awfully tired, probably from walking around all day in designer sandals that offered less arch support than a crumbled flying buttress, and kept reading.

"If you cannot drink in the wisdom of the world  it is because you do not have the head to experience it; change it, and greet the world with a snout to smell and a horn to glory in what is offered you."

A fierce headache began after reading this passage, and Mona looked up from The Enchiridicorn for the first time since beginning to read it.

The tightness and sweatiness Mona had felt were growing even as she stopped reading, and what's more she felt strangely upset in the deepest fiber of her being. It wasn't the same feeling as a brewing stomach flu; no, something inside her had awoken, and it was changing. Her ears kept fluttering itchily, and Mona realized that something was off about them; indeed, her ears had been quietly growing for some time, sprouting points even as they started firmly but gently pushing out and away from her head. And the itch?Strands white fluff were prickle poking out everywhere on them.

"I…I feel…I feel…" Mona couldn't finish because she had no idea how or what she was feeling; it was a completely alien sensation, like unfashionability or poverty.

The whole front of her face had begun to change, led by her dainty and rhinoplasty-free button of a nose. It struggled forward outward, growing longer and wider as if gleefully shedding a lifetime of expectations and playful taps by Mona's many suitors. A muzzle was beginning to form before her very eyes, nose merging with lips and the distinction between them becoming meaningless in a new and delicate form. Ominously, the prickles heralding the very same white down now sprouting on both her ears were alive across Mona's face as well, spreading and tickling from thickening cheek to widening jowl.
 
Trembling, her hands were aflame; Mona dropped The Enchiridicorn with a start, but it didn't alter the sudden changes: her fingers stiffened and her immaculately manicured nails were spasming out ever thicker and darker, the clear acrylic snapping as it flaked off. Within a moment, Mona's fingers were also fusing and growing immobile, as if they were hooves of some sort--which was exactly the path they were now set upon.

Mona could feel that her feet were changing too; in fact, the distinction between hand and foot was starting to fuzz away into nothingness. Her ankles were awash in white hair, while and her toes were twitching and spasming as if tasered, reforming themselves with audible snaps, crackles. Her toes, too, were becoming hooflike, her nails thickening and fusing in groups of two or three, their clear and shiny pedicure subsumed beneath what was unmistakably an evolving pair of cloven hooves. One sandal dangled uselessly between her swelling and fusing digits for a moment before the leather parted; the other was pushed up and back as Mona's changing leg instinctively drove it forward into the floor, splintering the sustainable wooden heel.

"What…what's happening?" Mona murmured in a daze. "I'm…I'm changing…!"

She could hear ripping and tearing in front of her; her tank top was giving way in front, the expensive imported stitching no match for the twins being pressed agains it by shoulders and chest that were becoming deeper as they sprouted white forests of fur. Mona's shorts fared even worse; they were so tight that the changed almost immediately began shredding the denim, and they were soon clinging to live with ragged fabric straps, exposing the salacious black undies from the "lil' Miss Sustainable Textile Devil" collection. Something short and white and stubby writhed at the base of her spine, an area exposed as Mona's changing legs forced her shorts apart and her panties down. It was a tail, with dark fur growing in at its tip to match that on Mona's head, where the headache that she had felt earlier had hatched into a lump and had now pupated into a tiny spiral horn that was growing up fast.

"Aah!" Gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut with pain at the continued metamorphosis, Mona heard a creaking beneath her as the πkea chair complained about suddenly being asked to support a very un-Swedish weight.

Mona's muzzle was long enough, had sprouted enough white fur, and was topped with ears pointed enough that it had graduated from a human face that looked vaguely equine to an equine head that looked vaguely human. Her single small horn had spiraled upward nearly a foot in length surrounded by hair that had kept Mona's natural hue but wasn't content with the short form it had been coiffed into. It now had aspirations of being a mane, long and luxurious.

She heard more ripping and tearing, accompanied by a strange warmth as her muscles continued to grow and shift. Her chest split completely through her shirt, pushing up her brassiere to reveal the sorry state of the twins; as Mona's chest barreled out and grew to support her new body, they were increasingly furred-over and indistinct, fading nipples and dwindling cleavage exposed by the weakness of designer fabrics. Mona's underwear had slid wuite a way down, pushed by hips swelling to equine proportions and alive with fuzz, but now they were caught at what had been her knees and the expanding leg muscles were tearing them to pieces. Her tail, newborn and free and swelling with growth, wagged happily.

Tottering upright on the πkea chair Mona heard a snap which was distinct from the snapping of bones in her wrists and ankles as they turned her feet and hands into unrecognizable cloven hooves and distinct from the snapping into place of corded muscle in her thighs and shoulders. Seconds later, the chair gave way with a resounding crack, plunging Mona to the ground with enough force to dent the concrete.

The impact threw Mona forward, and she gasped and panted at the effort needed to stand partway between two forms, continuing to swell and to metamorphose all the while. There was nothing left of her human clothing and very little left of her visible skin, and Mona's eyes flew open as she tried to balance on what had been her dainty toes but were now nearly grown hooves. Sweat streaked her new-grown fur as the most painful part of the transition commenced; Mona's back arched tenderly, forcing her forward from a bipedal to a quadrupedal stance, and her arms stretched out with the musculature to reach the ground. Her hips, topped with gyrating tail, were reaching their thickest extent, and her new flanks absorbed the pitiful remains of the knockers which had once opened so many doors for her.

A final clop, a painful stretch and spasm forward, another backward, and it was done. Standing atop a ruined chair before an open book was a unicorn, fully formed, delicate, and with no indication that it had ever been a shapely human girl. Even though Mona's blue eyes still shone through a mane the color of her human hair, her own sister wouldn't have recognized her and Travis would have demanded a full tip.

One might have expected Mona to wail and gnash her teeth at her fate, her loss of thumbs, the disappearance of the twins, and the shredded rags and splintered clogs that littered her floor. Instead, though, she felt a wave of calm and serenity wash over her, a feeling of just how silly many of her earlier concerns had been. she also gained a sudden clarity of insight at just how many of the random acts of kindness she'd experienced had been pretty overt sexual harassment; the new unicorn blushed at the realization, inasmuch as unicorns were capable of blushery.

"I think…" Mona said, forming the worlds gingerly with unfamiliar lips, "I think I'd like to see what else the book has to say."

Unsteadily at first, but with greater confidence with each motion, the unicorn trotted to The Enchiridicorn where it lay on the floor and began reading it anew, turning the pages with a gentle prodding of a cloven hoof.